As long as the woman still has eggs, those eggs can be treated.” The reproductive window can extend until menopause.
Scientists are developing a new drug which could drastically reduce one of the main obstacles to pregnancy at an older age: aging of eggs.
The approach, still in its initial phase, promises to increase the chances of success of fertility treatments — such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) — by women over 35 years of age, which may bring them closer to the rates observed in younger women.
The central problem lies in how aging affects the quality of eggs.
Women are born with a stock finite number of reproductive cells, maintained in the ovaries as “immature” eggs, which only complete the maturation process in each ovulation cycle.
With advancing age, this process becomes more prone to failure: the degradation of genetic material during maturation can prevent fertilization or result in non-viable embryos, increasing the risk of miscarriage.
The current numbers reflect this difficulty. On average, Women under 35 have about a one in three chance of achieving a pregnancy per IVF cycle – but this rate drops to less than 5% after age 40.
According to researchers, the new treatment seeks to attack the dominant cause of this decline: instability of genetic material in older eggs.
The technology is being developed by U-Ploid Biotechnologies. The company’s co-founder, Jordan Abdi, says that the team has understood the biological mechanism for several years, but only now has a strategy to counter it.
The premise is straightforward: “as long as the woman still has eggs, these eggs can be treated”quotes the , suggesting that the reproductive window could, in theory, extend until menopause.
In practice, the ambition is reduce dependence on donor eggs in women with over 42 years oldcurrently one of the few alternatives for many cases of age-related infertility.
The drug, called Lyvanta, acts as a kind of “cola” molecular, helping to keep the genetic material of the egg together during maturation.
Instead of the typical IVF protocol — in which a woman receives hormonal medication to stimulate the maturation of eggs within the body before retrieval — the new approach collects immature eggs directly from the ovaries and injects the drug with techniques similar to those used in clinics for sperm injection.
Then, the eggs would be induced to mature in the laboratory and used in a conventional IVF cycle.
The researchers also point out a possible additional benefit: by moving maturation to the laboratory, some patients could avoid some of the wear physical and psychological associated with hormonal injections.
The most advanced results come from studies in rats, presented at a reproductive medicine conference in October, where the team reported an 84% reduction in genetic damage in older eggs.
The next step is test the procedure in eggs humans in fertility clinics in the UK later this year, with the aim of progressing to clinical trials on patient IVF cycles as early as 2027.
The studies will begin by evaluating whether the drug effectively protects the maturation process and then whether the treated eggs fertilize and develop into embryos.
External experts ask prudence. Sarah Norcross, director of the Progress Educational Trust, stresses that the research is at a very early stage and that more work will be needed before any clinical application. For now, the promise exists — but testing in patients has yet to be done.
